AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!

I am freaking out right now.  In true Daley girl fashion, I've poured myself a glass of wine in an effort to take the edge off. Yes, I know this is unhealthy behavior, but technically so is having a bowl of ice cream when one feels stressed, but no one points fingers at ice cream addicts, so please do not judge me.

Bulldog and I were going over our calendar of what the next month and a half hold for us.  I am new in my job and have to find someone who has the right certifications to cover for me while I'm gone.  Then, on our collective return home two weeks after DJ's surgery, Bulldog will be going on a work related trip to Europe, the lucky bastard, leaving me to deal with juggling work and caring for DJ.  To be fair to Bulldog, he has postponed this trip three times and has a deadline of June, so there is really no way around this dilemma.

I would have my mom come stay with DJ, but I'm not certain how sure footed DJ will be two weeks post-op and my mother is not in the best physical shape herself.  Plus, DJ will be required to dilate multiple times a day and I'm not sure my mom is the person she would want to call on for assistance if she has a problem.  I wish I could be there every single day, but the reality is I have next to no leave accrued and I have students who are already freaking out about passing my courses. I feel like I have a moral obligation to be there for them, too.  Hence, my aforementioned freaking out.

Plus, a cousin on my father's side of the family is getting married the day before DJ leaves to come home. I think I can fly up that morning and fly back to the hotel where DJ and Bulldog will be before we hit the road to come home.  I would just opt out of going, but I've missed every single event that side of the family has hosted for the last decade.  This is my last cousin on that side of the family to get married and I do not want to miss it, especially in light of how much they have been there for us when my dad was sick.  How the heck I'll pull this off, I have no idea. I still want to believe it's possible, but it will mean asking for help from other family members or friends.

I hate asking for help. Why?  I am not sure.  Well, that's kind of fibbing-I do have a pretty good idea why, but I could fill up pages with my explanations and it would just bore you, the reader, to tears.

Take a deep breath woman-it will all work out-right?  DJ is the one with the really tough row to hoe-this other stuff can be worked out.  Right?  Right? Somebody tell me I'm right....

Paintin' the town

DJ is off on her first official outing without a parent in tow.  Kudos young woman!!

She has been slowly but surely climbing back onto the saddle of the horse that threw her.  The horse in question would be named----bastard is what I want to say, and frankly nothing more clever or creative comes to mind, so Bastard it is.  Bastard encompasses non-acceptance, rejection, disappointment in the reality of her life as a transgender teen in a small town, and the feelings of inadequacy that resulted from the aforementioned.  But Bastard can't keep a good girl down, and so she bravely climbed into a VW Bug with Sister Chromatid about 30 minutes ago in another effort to get on with her life.

What's the big deal about her going out with her best friend?  Well, I don't truly understand it myself, but I accept that it is her reality.  Anorexia, as stated before, is not just about eating. It's also about social anxiety in many cases.  DJ, like many of her peers who struggle with this disorder, often feel socially isolated.  From what I've observed, many of these folks are overachievers and when they face something they can't overcome, they try to find another way around the obstacle.  DJ, for example, tried to "fix" herself by controlling how she ate so that maybe, by being thinner and prettier, to quote her, her supposed "friends" would like her again like they used to like JD. Of course, it didn't work but she didn't see it was because she couldn't control their mistakes, only that she didn't do SOMETHING well enough.  This seemed to compound in her brain and translated to her feeling like she couldn't do anything well and that there was something really wrong with her as a person.  It's a tricky downward spiral.

And it seemed to happen overnight.  It's like someone flipped a switch.  One day, DJ was ready to take on the world, the next, she was unsure of herself, constantly.  Sister Chromatid did not understand DJ's social anxiety and thought it had something to do with DJ not wanting to be around her.  Once I explained to Sister Chromatid that DJ was putting pressure on herself and that her feelings of inadequacy around peers had nothing to do with Sister Chromatid, I could see the dawning understanding on Sister Chromatid's face.

So, the two of them just went out the door to have a latte at the local coffee shop and then to see "Titanic" at the movie theatre.  They'll likely just hang out afterwords at Sister Chromatid's house because hanging out here makes DJ uncomfortable having to play "hostess".  She is going to get a taste of what it's like to take off in a car, without parents, and that bit of freedom with her best friend is going to make her want more of it, even if it means facing her stressors more often.  The good will simply outweigh the bad.  I'm so happy for her.  It's a beautiful day for two best friends to simply hang out and "be".  Paint the town red ladies :)